


This Is The New Year

by harborshore



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-29
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 22:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harborshore/pseuds/harborshore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that may or may not have happened on Leap Year Day. Or during a Leap Year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is The New Year

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet makes no promise of adhering to any sensible calendar. Or to the movie canon post XMFC, except perhaps a little bit. Also, it's not just about marriage, because I like the idea of Leap Year Day bringing about change (as opposed to the idea that women are only allowed to propose one year out of four, what even is that, sigh). It's basically fix-it fluff.

1\. Pre-Movie

"Charles," Raven says, coming into the kitchen. They're both anxious, waiting for the letters from across the Atlantic, the ones that may or may not give them a chance to leave.

"Yes?" he says, turning to face her. She's blonde again, the face he's most accustomed to at this point.

"Did you know that when it's a Leap Year, women can propose?"

"I did know that," he says, grinning. "Why, do you have someone in mind?"

She flinches a little. "I don't know that I'd want someone who doesn't know my actual face," she says.

Oh. Right. "I like your face," he offers, knowing it isn't really enough.

"You're my brother," she says, and yes, he mostly is. 

"We'll find you someone," he says, promising things he can't, as usual, but it does make her smile. But maybe he can say something that'll help a little. And it is Leap Year Day, the point is to be daring. "Be it boy or girl or whatever, dear, someone will love you. I shall not consent to your marriage unless I am assured of that." 

"As if I'd let you have a say," she says, but she's smiling.

1500 miles away, Irene Adler, who just made up her mind to go by the handle of Destiny, smiles as well, as a certain set of futures unfold.

 

2\. Post-movie

Alex finds Darwin on a February morning when the sun has just made up its mind to creep across the horizon. He's mostly unsubstantial, a mist that fades in and out. Alex knows him, anyway.

"But I didn't wish," Alex blurts out.

Darwin looks puzzled. As puzzled as a shape made out of fog can look, anyway.

"It was Sean," Alex explains. "He pulled out a candle and said the night before February 29th was a night to make wishes. I didn't, I didn't wish."

Darwin goes a little more solid at that, enough to touch Alex. "I did," he says. "I woke up and I wanted to come back to you. And then there you were."

 

3\. Post-movie (2008)

"Marry me!" Raven is laughing, kissing Irene's nose. "You really should marry me, it's legal and everything."

"We've been together this long," Irene says. "You really think it's necessary?"

Raven shifts under her, and Irene flicks through her mental images of diverging futures until she can tell what face Raven is wearing. Raven's wearing her old face, the blonde one.

"I do," she says, and she sounds more solemn than Irene is used to. "You are the one I--you are. It ought to be you."

"Well, if it ought to be me," Irene says, gentle, and kisses her lover. "But only if you wear your own face."

"We'd have to invite my brother," Raven says. "If we want someone human to do it, anyway."

Irene thinks about mentioning the priest she knows, who would certainly marry them no matter how blue Raven is, but doesn't, because she's fairly sure of what Raven is saying. "Yes, let's do that," she says, kissing Raven again.

 

4\. During the movie

Charles has never been in this much pain in his entire life (feeling someone die inside his head is something he never wants to do again), but he's rather sure that if he doesn't get it together immediately, something dreadful will happen.

He takes in the scene in front of him. 

Missiles. Against the mutants on the beach, as if they didn't just save the world from nuclear war. Erik is reversing the missiles, sending them against the ships that fired them. He can't feel Erik, Erik is wearing Shaw's helmet.

Yes, dreadful was about right.

"Erik," he says, through the throbbing pain in his skull. "Erik, please. Don't kill them."

"Why not?" Erik says. _An eye for an eye_ is so clearly what he is thinking that Charles doesn't even need the helmet to read it.

"Because prejudice is a sickness," Charles says. "Because you're probably right that I'm too naive, but prejudice is a sickness and unless we stop it somewhere, the violence and the deaths will just keep going. Please, Erik. We'll figure this out."

Erik looks at him. "I do think you're too naive," he says, and Charles closes his eyes, because feeling everyone on those boats die might kill him. As well it should, if he can't prevent it from happening. "But," Erik continues, and Charles opens his eyes to see the missiles fall harmlessly into the water. "I suppose you may have a point. And I'm rather invested in this partnership of ours," he adds, and there's the smile Charles recognizes. "We'll work on it, but I promise next time I won't be so nice."

 

5\. Post-movie

It's winter. It's late. New York City is dark, people hiding away from the winds. Erik draws his coat close, and wishes he had enough of his mutation back to heat the metal around him. It's been coming back in whispers, his mutation, and he's patient enough to wait it out, but sometimes he does want it to hurry.

 _Erik?_ Someone is waiting outside his apartment door. Someone who sounds familiar but doesn't look it.

"Who are you?" he says, snaps, and palms the knife he carries. He may be old, but he isn't defenseless.

 _Erik, it's me,_ the stranger says. _I came for a game of chess_.

"You're dead," Erik says, gripping the knife a little tighter. "You're dead, and I don't appreciate the trick."

"I'm really not," the stranger says, and it's Charles' inflection. "I'm in someone else's body, though."

"Charles would never," Erik says, certain.

The stranger smiles. "You did always think the world of me," he says. "And I didn't, anyway, this fellow had lost his mind completely. He was comatose, no hope of recovery. I--my consciousness ended up with him, you might say. It was actually an accident. I don't like the ethics of it either. But I was quite lost, you know, after--"

The explosion. Erik swallows. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" 

"You don't," Charles says. Because Erik has to call him that, mentally, he sounds so familiar. "But I had to come back to you, and you might recognize that feeling."

Charles pushes something at him at that, an emotion that feels like--it's fifty years at once, regret and rejection and heartbreak and everything that ever laid between them. 

"So you didn't die," Erik says slowly, and Charles reaches for him, then.


End file.
